A
week that will define Europe
Britain’s
referendum could remake the EU and the UK. Then four days later,
Spain votes.
By PIERRE BRIANÇON
6/20/16, 6:00 AM CET
PARIS — In a few
days’ time, the populist conservative Boris Johnson may well be on
his way to becoming British prime minister. And the radical left
Podemos movement could be close to the reins of power in Spain.
It’s not your
father’s Europe anymore.
While neither of
those scenarios is a sure thing, the fact that both are even
plausible highlights the current state of the European Union.
Whatever the results of Thursday’s U.K. referendum on EU membership
and Sunday’s Spanish parliamentary elections, European governments
and institutions will have to face up to the same sobering reality:
Fierce criticism of the EU is the one thing that Europe’s varied
populist, insurgent and anti-establishment movements, left or right,
have in common.
Spain and Britain
aren’t the only countries where traditional politics seems to have
been turned upside down. Add to this the strong showing in Italy of
candidates from the Five Star movement founded less than seven years
ago by comedian Beppe Grillo, one of whom was slated to become mayor
of Rome after Sunday’s local elections; polls that put François
Hollande in fourth place in the opening round of France’s
presidential election next year; and the far-right AfD movement that
has shaken up German politics, just one year before general
elections, as support for mainstream parties that make up the ruling
coalition last month fell below 50 percent in polls for the first
time since the birth of Germany’s postwar democracy.
And that’s just on
this side of the Atlantic. Donald Trump, the presumptive GOP nominee
for president, and Bernie Sanders, who for months harried Hillary
Clinton on the Democratic side, have upset the American political
system.
Should U.K. voters
decide to part from the EU, Johnson, the former London mayor and
Brexit campaign poster boy, becomes a credible near-term challenger
to David Cameron for the leadership of the conservative party. A
victory for Leave could also call into question the future of the
United Kingdom, stirring afresh demands in Scotland to break away —
as well as possibly Wales and, less than two decades after peace
broke out on the island, Northern Ireland.
Spain’s Podemos
could build on its showing as Spain’s second most popular party to
form or participate in a governing coalition, having humiliated
center-left party PSOE, which ruled Spain for 23 of the 42 years
since the return of democracy after Franco’s death. Podemos also
supports Catalonia’s demands for a referendum on independence,
which could lead to the breakup of Spain.
So far neither
Europe’s governments nor the EU institutions seem to have action
plans for scenarios that would have seemed far-fetched only six
months ago. Some even think they shouldn’t.
Hollande and German
Chancellor Angela Merkel have seemed at pains to deny they are
planning to meet or talk before the British vote. Seasoned
politicians know there’s not much use in thinking too hard about
events that by definition will include many unknowns to allow for
detailed response planning.
The next day
Paris and Berlin are
mulling a swift, joint statement in case of Brexit but the message
would be more political than practical, said a French government
adviser. Only a few months ago both governments were still talking of
an “initiative” to show they still had some sort of EU reform on
their mind. Not anymore.
“It would be
important to have something to show some common approach, but they
can’t have a detailed plan to address something that will be
complex with too many unpredictable aspects,” said Bruno Tertrais
from the Strategic Research Foundation in Paris.
The
need to consult voters is also one of the reasons most governments
have given up on the idea that the European Union should be shored up
by a new treaty anytime soon.
Given the current
mood of Euroskepticism or Euro-allergy — to borrow an expression
from former French Foreign Minister Hubert Védrine — it’s
unlikely that any government would choose this moment to push for
even more European integration. This time, “more Europe” isn’t
being raised as the answer to the EU’s many problems, as in the
past.
“I think the whole
idea of European federalism has just died and now is the time for EU
governments and institutions, which have been so out of touch with
voters, to stop, think and reflect: What has gone wrong with the
project?” said Charles Grant, the director of the London-based
Center for European Reform.
Shoppers fill the
main shopping street in Witney, a town in the constituency of British
Prime Minister David Cameron
Beyond the
consequences for U.K. domestic policy, the immediate concern of other
European governments will be to avoid possible contagion and deal
with the meltdown in financial markets that might follow a Brexit
vote.
EU governments, as
always, will rely on their central banks — the Bank of England and
the ECB — to deal with the aftershocks in equity or foreign
exchange markets, but neither Mark Carney nor Mario Draghi, the men
who run those two institutions, respectively, can help them much with
the political tremors.
Both Paris and
Berlin have already sent signals they would see to it that the
practical exit of the U.K. from the EU won’t be easy, in order to
deter countries that might be tempted, in the near-to-distant future,
to emulate Britain. There is a need to “act fast to avoid other
countries starting a similar process,” outspoken French Economy
Minister Emmanuel Macron said Friday in a radio interview.
More fundamentally,
EU governments have yet to find a way to “deliver what the middle
class expects: economic and social performance, and the prospect that
their children will be better off than they are,” said Pascal Lamy,
a former European commissioner and World Trade Organisation chief.
“That was at the heart of the consensus in years past. Not
anymore.”
The
British vote has given ideas to politicians across the EU who are
eager to show voters they will have a say on the future of Europe.
“In this context
the idea that some are benefitting mightily while others are left out
is a powerful source of political frustration,” Lamy added,
pointing out that themes such as inequality and corruption are as
important to the new political movements as opposition to economic
austerity.
Referendum contagion
Part of the
contagion risk is the idea of the referendum itself. The British vote
has given ideas to politicians across the EU who are eager to show
voters they will have a say on the future of Europe.
Ever since people
started being directly consulted on the project of an EU Constitution
more than ten years ago, the outcome has almost never been good for
the European idea. The Constitution was rejected by the French
themselves in 2005.
It’s easy for
candidates running for office to promise to consult the public if and
when they’re elected. But the need to consult voters is also one of
the reasons most governments have given up on the idea that the
European Union should be shored up by a new treaty anytime soon.
Yet while leading
politicians in the EU signal their reluctance to rush toward any
further new integration in the aftermath of the British referendum,
they’re not clear on what concrete steps they might take. Some of
it could be finishing what has been started — such as, for example,
the eurozone’s banking union. But even at the eurozone level, which
could solidify further into the EU’s hard core if Britain leaves,
there is little appetite for new grand schemes: That would only “help
revive old-standing differences of approach between France and
Germany,” said a European diplomat.
There’s also the
question of what role the current EU institutions — the Commission
and the Parliament — might play in a new climate infused with
Euro-wariness. “There’s a realization that Europe has changed
much faster than its conservative, slow-moving institutional bodies,”
said Vivien Pertusot from the Institut Français des Relations
Internationales.
The CER’s Grant
said one of the results of Brexit could be the resurgence of the old
French concept of “Europe des patries” (Europe of nations) —
with intergovernmental politics taking over from EU institutions and
even the smaller EU members, who would be short-changed by decisions
larger powers would make together. The EU institutions, he said, must
work to recoup their lost legitimacy in producing actual results —
on the single market, the digital economy, or the refugee problem.
A year before
important national elections in France and Germany, it’s clear that
Hollande and Merkel aren’t looking for any bigger ideas.
Authors:
Pierre Briançon
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